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Former Olympian Charmaine Reid has seen match fixing in badminton before, but nothing like what she just saw in London.

“The way it happened, how bad they were trying to throw the match, that surprised me.”

Two women’s teams from South Korea, one from Indonesia and one from China, the top-ranked team in the world, were recently disqualified from the Summer Olympic Games in London after trying to throw their matches.

The highly publicized incident isn’t the first of its kind, either. Chinese coach Li Yongbo previously admitted to ordering players to throw a semifinal match in the 2004 Athens Olympics. And Reid says it isn’t uncommon to see when two teams from the same country play each other.

“When you play in the major tournaments and it’s country against country, you will see some of the players throwing it to each other so they have a day off or it (the next match) is not so hard.”

In these cases, Reid said, one team will often drop out because of injury, resulting in a default. The latest match fixing attempt, however, was so blatant that fans began booing the competitors as serves continually found the net and players botched routine shots.

“I’ve played these teams before and Yu (Yang of China) is one of the best doubles players,” Reid said.

The problem stems from a round-robin format rather than a straight elimination tournament. In a round-robin format, losing one game can lead to an easier matchup in the next round, depending on the random draw. This year, China’s Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang knew before competing that if they won their match against South Korea’s Jung Kyun-eun and Kim Ha-na, they would have to face their Chinese compatriots, the No. 2-ranked team in the world, in the quarter-final.

“The way it happened was incredible. It shouldn’t have even come down to that,” Reid said. “To see that happening is disappointing for the sport.”

Reid said the solution is to simply not publish the draw before all the matches are finished.

The silver lining is that the Canadian team of Alex Bruce and Michelle Li still has a shot at a medal after replacing one of the disqualified teams — although that shot could have been Reid’s.

Reid and her doubles partner Nicole Grether tried to qualify for the London Olympics, but weren’t allowed to compete in three tournaments, including the Pan American games, because Grether still holds a German passport. The duo ended up ranked 30th in the world, whereas Bruce and Li finished 28th, earning them a spot in London.

“With those three tournaments, we would have had a great shot to qualify,” Reid said.

Instead, Reid will be watching from home with her parents and cheering on her fellow Canadians, although she admitted “missing out on the Olympics is tough.”

After a brief respite at home, it’s back to the road for Reid, as she competes internationally. Reid and Grether have played in approximately 20 tournaments so far this year and have come away with more than 10 medals.

“Badminton is almost a 12-month sport now. It’s so big internationally there’s probably three or four tournaments on a weekend.”

Up next for Reid is the Carebaco International 2012 tournament in Santo Domingo at the end of August.